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Implied starting date of the Empire from OT dialogue — Page 5

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Time

darklordoftech said:

Early ESB drafts suggest that Yoda trained Annikin.

Really? Even though Obi-Wan clearly said that he trained him in ANH?

Which draft is this? Is it the one written before Kasdan got involved.
I seem to remember reading about an early draft where Vader wasn't Anakin, and Luke even meets his father's ghost on Dagobah and they perform some kind of Jedi initiation ritual, or oath, or something like that together.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hal 9000 said:

Obi-Wan said he trained Vader in ANH, not Luke's father.

Right, it's so hard to think of them as two different people at this point. But you're right, he only refers to Vader as his pupil and just says that he fought alongside Luke's father in the Clone Wars.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

ZkinandBonez said:

Hal 9000 said:

Obi-Wan said he trained Vader in ANH, not Luke's father.

Right, it's so hard to think of them as two different people at this point. But you're right, he only refers to Vader as his pupil and just says that he fought alongside Luke's father in the Clone Wars.

This probably isn't worth much, but I looked through my re-prints of the Marvel SW comics that were published between 1977-1980, and there's an Annual issue that mentions Obi-Wan's two students; Skywalker and Vader. 
I'm wondering if the comic writer simply assumed that they were both Obi-Wan's pupils during the Clone Wars, but it is possible that he had that information from Lucas/Lucasfilm. 

Of course these comics are known for some amusing plot details that quickly became non-canon as the movies were released, but even their weird interpretation of Jabba the Hutt (or "Hut" as they called him) were still based on notes from Lucasfilm. I remeber reading somewhere that the second appearance of Jabba was commissioned by Lucasfilm since they intended to mention him again in ESB. Of course three years later they decided to show him looking completely different anyway.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time

I got the impression that Tarkin had a major role in the rise of the Empire. I imagine that he helped Palpatine become President of the Senate, helped wipe out the Jedi, etc. I think that the prequels should have shown an escalating rivalry between Bail Organa and Tarkin.

Here's some Lucas quotes from summer 1977:

"[...] One of the Chancellors began subverting the Senate and buying off Senators with the help of some of the large intergalactic trade companies and mining companies and intergalactic power companies. Through their power and money, he bought off enough of the Senate to get himself elected to a second term, because of a crisis. By the time the third term came along, he had corrupted so much of the Senate that they made him Emperor for the rest of his life.
"Giving the Emperor that title for life and doing away with the elective process was all done with a lot of rationalizing. Many in the Senate felt that having elections and changing leaders in the time of an emergency disrupted the bureaucratic system. And the bureaucracy was getting to be so big that changing leaders made it impossible to have any effect on the system and make it work - moreover the bureaucracy was running amok and not paying attention to the rulers. So they reasoned that the Emperor could bring the bureaucracy back in line. So the Emperor took control of the bureaucracy. The Galactic Senate would meet for a period that was similar to a year, but after it became the Imperial Senate, the meetings were less and less frequent until finally the meetings were only once a year, and they were very short.
"With the bureaucracy behind the Emperor, it was impossible and too late for the Senate to do anything. He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who had let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy. It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies."

"Darth Vader is really attached to the Emperor himself, and he was not really part of the Death Star personnel or any of that system. Lord Vader worked directly for the Emperor and was the Emperor's emissary.
[...]
When the Jedi tried to restore order, Darth Vader was still one of the Jedi. What he would do is catch the Jedi off guard and, using his knowledge of the Force, he would kill the Jedi without them realizing what was happening. They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks. At the height of the Jedi, there were sever hundred thousand. At the time of the Rebellion, most of them were killed. The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly. The Jedi were so outnumbered that they fled and were tracked down. They tried to regroup, but they were eventually massacred by one of the special elite forces led by Darth Vader. Eventually only a few, including Ben and Luke's father, were left. Luke's father is named Annikin."

Author
Time
 (Edited)

darklordoftech said:

I got the impression that Tarkin had a major role in the rise of the Empire. I imagine that he helped Palpatine become President of the Senate, helped wipe out the Jedi, etc. I think that the prequels should have shown an escalating rivalry between Bail Organa and Tarkin.

Here's some Lucas quotes from summer 1977:

"[...] One of the Chancellors began subverting the Senate and buying off Senators with the help of some of the large intergalactic trade companies and mining companies and intergalactic power companies. Through their power and money, he bought off enough of the Senate to get himself elected to a second term, because of a crisis. By the time the third term came along, he had corrupted so much of the Senate that they made him Emperor for the rest of his life.
"Giving the Emperor that title for life and doing away with the elective process was all done with a lot of rationalizing. Many in the Senate felt that having elections and changing leaders in the time of an emergency disrupted the bureaucratic system. And the bureaucracy was getting to be so big that changing leaders made it impossible to have any effect on the system and make it work - moreover the bureaucracy was running amok and not paying attention to the rulers. So they reasoned that the Emperor could bring the bureaucracy back in line. So the Emperor took control of the bureaucracy. The Galactic Senate would meet for a period that was similar to a year, but after it became the Imperial Senate, the meetings were less and less frequent until finally the meetings were only once a year, and they were very short.
"With the bureaucracy behind the Emperor, it was impossible and too late for the Senate to do anything. He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who had let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy. It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies."

"Darth Vader is really attached to the Emperor himself, and he was not really part of the Death Star personnel or any of that system. Lord Vader worked directly for the Emperor and was the Emperor's emissary.
[...]
When the Jedi tried to restore order, Darth Vader was still one of the Jedi. What he would do is catch the Jedi off guard and, using his knowledge of the Force, he would kill the Jedi without them realizing what was happening. They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks. At the height of the Jedi, there were sever hundred thousand. At the time of the Rebellion, most of them were killed. The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly. The Jedi were so outnumbered that they fled and were tracked down. They tried to regroup, but they were eventually massacred by one of the special elite forces led by Darth Vader. Eventually only a few, including Ben and Luke's father, were left. Luke's father is named Annikin."

This is pretty interesting, it gives some details to Palpatine's take-over as Emperor. (It's also very similar to Nazi history isn't it? I don't remember specific political details, but it sounds very similar.) That first quote could fit really well with what we've discussed earlier that Palpatine's New Order probably existed for quite a while before it eventually fully took over in the form of the Empire in 18 BBY.

The second quote is quite an interesting addition to what we've read/heard before in the movies and books (as well as the PT for that matter). It's never occurred to me before that he could have been an assassin on behalf of Palpatine before he eventually became Darth Vader and eventually performed the military "purge" that we're more familiar with.
I think ROTS would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone for this story, rather than the fairly instant transformation that we did get. 
Although this quote mentions Vader and "Annikin" as different people, it could still more or less be attributed to the post 1983, pre-PT canon.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

ZkinandBonez said: The second quote is quite an interesting addition to what we've read/heard before in the movies and books (as well as the PT for that matter). It's never occurred to me before that he could have been an assassin on behalf of Palpatine before he eventually became Darth Vader and eventually performed the military "purge" that we're more familiar with. I think ROTS would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone for this story, rather than the fairly instant transformation that we did get.  Although this quote mentions Vader and "Annikin" as different people, it could still more or less be attributed to the post 1983, pre-PT canon.

Lucas actually restated the second quote to Kasdan during the writing of ROTJ:

Lucas: "Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official." 
Kasdan: "Was he a Jedi?" 
Lucas: "No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke's father into the dark side." 
Kasdan: "The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?" 
Lucas: "Yes, everybody can do it." 
Kasdan: "Not just the Jedi?"
Lucas: "It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it." 
Marquand: "They use it as a technique." 
Lucas: "Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing."
[...]
Lucas: "Well, anyway, Luke's father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed — and it's because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke's mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up. Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor's troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader's wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi. When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'. And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can't raise Luke himself, because he's a wanted man. Leia and Luke's mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben's. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died."
Kasdan: "She does know that?" 
Lucas: "Yes, so we can bring that out when Luke is talking to her, she can say that her mother died when 'I was two years old'."

I wonder if Lucas is also implying that Palpatine is self-taught when it comes to using The Force. Maybe that's why Palpatine calls the lightsaber "the weapon of a Jedi."

Author
Time
 (Edited)

darklordoftech said:

ZkinandBonez said: The second quote is quite an interesting addition to what we've read/heard before in the movies and books (as well as the PT for that matter). It's never occurred to me before that he could have been an assassin on behalf of Palpatine before he eventually became Darth Vader and eventually performed the military "purge" that we're more familiar with. I think ROTS would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone for this story, rather than the fairly instant transformation that we did get.  Although this quote mentions Vader and "Annikin" as different people, it could still more or less be attributed to the post 1983, pre-PT canon.

Lucas actually restated the second quote to Kasdan during the writing of ROTJ:

Lucas: "Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official." 
Kasdan: "Was he a Jedi?" 
Lucas: "No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke's father into the dark side." 
Kasdan: "The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?" 
Lucas: "Yes, everybody can do it." 
Kasdan: "Not just the Jedi?"
Lucas: "It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it." 
Marquand: "They use it as a technique." 
Lucas: "Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing."
[...]
Lucas: "Well, anyway, Luke's father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed — and it's because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke's mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up. Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor's troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader's wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi. When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'. And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can't raise Luke himself, because he's a wanted man. Leia and Luke's mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben's. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died."
Kasdan: "She does know that?" 
Lucas: "Yes, so we can bring that out when Luke is talking to her, she can say that her mother died when 'I was two years old'."

I wonder if Lucas is also implying that Palpatine is self-taught when it comes to using The Force. Maybe that's why Palpatine calls the lightsaber "the weapon of a Jedi."

It's kind of funny how Lucas tells Kasdan that using the force can be learned by anyone, only to shortly after point out how "strong" it is in the Skywalkers.
So I'm guessing that it's more of a second nature to them, while most people have to work really hard on it?

It's hard to tell what Palpatine really is. Every pre-PT text I have read so far has always just referred to his past as a "mystery". I don't really think it matters though. The only thing that that all the texts, and seemingly Lucas (pre-PT anyway) seem to agree on is that he has been evil for a very, very long time. Perhaps he's always been evil. 
Then there's his unnatural age. According to Lucas' timeline he was a "young" politician while Mon Mothma was in office, yet ca. 30-40 (EDIT: this particular detail is from the EU) years later he looks ancient. His age also has a very unnatural look to it as well. He looks almost decayed and his eyes have that unnatural yellow colour. The novelization of ROTJ which was approved by Lucas describes him as having "a face lined by holocaust."
(Heck one EU interpretation of this "Mystery" simply stated that he had had many lives, implying both cloning and somehow resurrecting himself with the Force. He even described himself as more energy than man. I always liked Dark Empire's interpretation, it was weird but it's sits a lot more right with me than the whole Plageuis thing ever did.)
His death in ROTJ is also pretty surreal and weird. Not only is there some kind of energy explosion as he falls down the shaft, if you listen closely the energy cloud has this supernatural wail to it. Of course this is in a universe with Force ghosts, but you get the impression that there was more to Palpatine than being a mere Sith as the PT made him.

But random thoughts on Palpatine aside;
at least we now have an official date of Mrs. Skywalker's death at 16 BBY

Lucas also mentions that Anakin loses his "other arm" in his duel with Obi-Wan, does that mean that he always intended for Anakin to loose his arm in battle like he eventually did in the PT? 

(Btw, where did you get this conversation transcript?)

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time

ZkinandBonez said:

darklordoftech said:

ZkinandBonez said: The second quote is quite an interesting addition to what we've read/heard before in the movies and books (as well as the PT for that matter). It's never occurred to me before that he could have been an assassin on behalf of Palpatine before he eventually became Darth Vader and eventually performed the military "purge" that we're more familiar with. I think ROTS would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone for this story, rather than the fairly instant transformation that we did get.  Although this quote mentions Vader and "Annikin" as different people, it could still more or less be attributed to the post 1983, pre-PT canon.

Lucas actually restated the second quote to Kasdan during the writing of ROTJ:

Lucas: "Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official." 
Kasdan: "Was he a Jedi?" 
Lucas: "No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke's father into the dark side." 
Kasdan: "The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?" 
Lucas: "Yes, everybody can do it." 
Kasdan: "Not just the Jedi?"
Lucas: "It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it." 
Marquand: "They use it as a technique." 
Lucas: "Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing."
[...]
Lucas: "Well, anyway, Luke's father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed — and it's because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke's mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up. Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor's troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader's wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi. When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'. And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can't raise Luke himself, because he's a wanted man. Leia and Luke's mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben's. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died."
Kasdan: "She does know that?" 
Lucas: "Yes, so we can bring that out when Luke is talking to her, she can say that her mother died when 'I was two years old'."

I wonder if Lucas is also implying that Palpatine is self-taught when it comes to using The Force. Maybe that's why Palpatine calls the lightsaber "the weapon of a Jedi."

It's kind of funny how Lucas tells Kasdan that using the force can be learned by anyone, only to shortly after point out how "strong" it is in the Skywalkers.
So I'm guessing that it's more of a second nature to them, while most people have to work really hard on it?

It's hard to tell what Palpatine really is. Every pre-PT text I have read so far has always just referred to his past as a "mystery". I don't really think it matters though. The only thing that that all the texts, and seemingly Lucas (pre-PT anyway) seem to agree on is that he has been evil for a very, very long time. Perhaps he's always been evil. 
Then there's his unnatural age. According to Lucas' timeline he was a "young" politician while Mon Mothma was in office, yet ca. 30-40 years later he looks ancient. His age also has a very unnatural look to it as well. He looks almost decayed and his eyes have that unnatural yellow colour. The novelization of ROTJ which was approved by Lucas describes him as having "a face lined by holocaust."
(Heck one EU interpretation of this "Mystery" simply stated that he had had many lives, implying both cloning and somehow resurrecting himself with the Force. He even described himself as more energy than man. I always liked Dark Empire's interpretation, it was weird but it's sits a lot more right with me than the whole Plageuis thing ever did.)
His death in ROTJ is also pretty surreal and weird. Not only is there some kind of energy explosion as he falls down the shaft, if you listen closely the energy cloud has this supernatural wail to it. Of course this is in a universe with Force ghosts, but you get the impression that there was more to Palpatine than being a mere Sith as the PT made him.

But random thoughts on Palpatine aside;
at least we now have an official date of Mrs. Skywalker's death at 16 BBY

Lucas also mentions that Anakin loses his "other arm" in his duel with Obi-Wan, does that mean that he always intended for Anakin to loose his arm in battle like he eventually did in the PT? 

(Btw, where did you get this conversation transcript?)

This conversation transcript is in The Making of Return of the Jedi by J.W. Rinzler. 

I think Lucas sees Palpatine as evil from birth. Luceno mentioned that Lucas told him this.

Where was Palpatine described as a "young" politician?

Author
Time
 (Edited)

darklordoftech said:

Where was Palpatine described as a "young" politician?

In the AGTTSWU
"..., the senate offered up a promising young politician who seemed perfect for keeping the union together."
(Scroll down on page 3 of this thread and you'll see my full quotation from the Guide.)

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

ZkinandBonez said:

darklordoftech said:

ZkinandBonez said: The second quote is quite an interesting addition to what we've read/heard before in the movies and books (as well as the PT for that matter). It's never occurred to me before that he could have been an assassin on behalf of Palpatine before he eventually became Darth Vader and eventually performed the military "purge" that we're more familiar with. I think ROTS would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone for this story, rather than the fairly instant transformation that we did get.  Although this quote mentions Vader and "Annikin" as different people, it could still more or less be attributed to the post 1983, pre-PT canon.

Lucas actually restated the second quote to Kasdan during the writing of ROTJ:

Lucas: "Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official." 
Kasdan: "Was he a Jedi?" 
Lucas: "No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke's father into the dark side." 
Kasdan: "The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?" 
Lucas: "Yes, everybody can do it." 
Kasdan: "Not just the Jedi?"
Lucas: "It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it." 
Marquand: "They use it as a technique." 
Lucas: "Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing."
[...]
Lucas: "Well, anyway, Luke's father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed — and it's because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke's mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up. Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor's troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader's wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi. When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, 'I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe'. And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can't raise Luke himself, because he's a wanted man. Leia and Luke's mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben's. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died."
Kasdan: "She does know that?" 
Lucas: "Yes, so we can bring that out when Luke is talking to her, she can say that her mother died when 'I was two years old'."

I wonder if Lucas is also implying that Palpatine is self-taught when it comes to using The Force. Maybe that's why Palpatine calls the lightsaber "the weapon of a Jedi."

It's kind of funny how Lucas tells Kasdan that using the force can be learned by anyone, only to shortly after point out how "strong" it is in the Skywalkers.
So I'm guessing that it's more of a second nature to them, while most people have to work really hard on it?

It's hard to tell what Palpatine really is. Every pre-PT text I have read so far has always just referred to his past as a "mystery". I don't really think it matters though. The only thing that that all the texts, and seemingly Lucas (pre-PT anyway) seem to agree on is that he has been evil for a very, very long time. Perhaps he's always been evil. 
Then there's his unnatural age. According to Lucas' timeline he was a "young" politician while Mon Mothma was in office, yet ca. 30-40 (EDIT: this particular detail is from the EU) years later he looks ancient. His age also has a very unnatural look to it as well. He looks almost decayed and his eyes have that unnatural yellow colour. The novelization of ROTJ which was approved by Lucas describes him as having "a face lined by holocaust."
(Heck one EU interpretation of this "Mystery" simply stated that he had had many lives, implying both cloning and somehow resurrecting himself with the Force. He even described himself as more energy than man. I always liked Dark Empire's interpretation, it was weird but it's sits a lot more right with me than the whole Plageuis thing ever did.)
His death in ROTJ is also pretty surreal and weird. Not only is there some kind of energy explosion as he falls down the shaft, if you listen closely the energy cloud has this supernatural wail to it. Of course this is in a universe with Force ghosts, but you get the impression that there was more to Palpatine than being a mere Sith as the PT made him.

But random thoughts on Palpatine aside;
at least we now have an official date of Mrs. Skywalker's death at 16 BBY

Lucas also mentions that Anakin loses his "other arm" in his duel with Obi-Wan, does that mean that he always intended for Anakin to loose his arm in battle like he eventually did in the PT? 

(Btw, where did you get this conversation transcript?)

There's another bit in The Making of ROTJ where GL clarifies that Obi-Wan cuts off Anakin's right arm earlier in The Duel. The lava did for his left arm and a leg, apparently.

Apparently somewhere between 1983 and 1999 GL learned that Lord of the Rings wasn't exactly a reliable source on the effects of falling into lava.

“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”

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Interesting that in this ROTJ-era version of the prequels, the twins are hidden from both Vader and the Emperor, if Ben knew Anakin survived the duel. Hiding Leia on Alderaan and Luke with his brother's family makes sense bset they  nothing to do with Anakin. Hiding Luke with Anakin's step-brother only makes sense if they take Anakin for dead. It still doesn't explain who thought it was a good idea to leave his last name.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Interesting that in this ROTJ-era version of the prequels, the twins are hidden from both Vader and the Emperor, if Ben knew Anakin survived the duel. Hiding Leia on Alderaan and Luke with his brother’s family makes sense bset they  nothing to do with Anakin. Hiding Luke with Anakin’s step-brother only makes sense if they take Anakin for dead. It still doesn’t explain who thought it was a good idea to leave his last name.

EDIT: Had some trouble logging in due to the forum migration, eneded up with an older user and have now deleted this post and re-posted it with my regular user.

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Hal 9000 said:

Interesting that in this ROTJ-era version of the prequels, the twins are hidden from both Vader and the Emperor, if Ben knew Anakin survived the duel. Hiding Leia on Alderaan and Luke with his brother’s family makes sense bset they  nothing to do with Anakin. Hiding Luke with Anakin’s step-brother only makes sense if they take Anakin for dead. It still doesn’t explain who thought it was a good idea to leave his last name.

Of course in the ROTJ-era version Owen was Obi-Wan’s brother rather than Anakin’s half-brother.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Resurrecting this thread!

So pre-1978:

  1. Do we have an idea of when the Clone Wars took place, how many there were, who were the parties involved?

  2. Who are The Sith?

  3. Who is Darth Vader? What role does he have in The Empire?

I will speculate a little.

First, it seems that the Clone Wars were intended to happen before The Empire was formed and that Obi-Wan is really, really old. In the novelization of Star Wars Luke is astonished that Obi-wan fought in them (“But that was so long ago!”). So Obi is actually older than he looks. He looks say 65, but maybe is like 85.

Luke’s (unnamed) father was probably a peer of Vaders. Both Vader and Daddy Skywalker were maybe half of Obi-wans age.

There is no notion that Obi-wan was responsible for Vader’s fall.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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That’s interesting how Obi-Wan was intended to be older. It sort of reminds me of Aragorn. Ewan McGregor did a good job in the role, but it was an odd choice for George to cast someone so young.

I do wonder what George was picturing when he thought of the Clone Wars. I suppose he just came up with the name as a way of intriguing the audience with unseen backstory, giving us a sense of some crazy wars off in space back in the olden days of the Republic. And when the time came to write the prequels, he had to figure out what the term “Clone Wars” actually entailed. I doubt he intended back in the 70’s for the clones to be the army protecting the Republic. I do wonder, though, at what point he came up with the idea that the Clone Wars were orchestrated by the Emperor to gain power, since there’s nothing to suggest that in the OT. Maybe originally, the Clone Wars were just a series of conflicts unrelated to the rise of the Empire, which just happened to occur around the same time.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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Servii said:

That’s interesting how Obi-Wan was intended to be older. It sort of reminds me of Aragorn. Ewan McGregor did a good job in the role, but it was an odd choice for George to cast someone so young.

I don’t know how closely Lucas and Alan Dean Foster (who Ghost Wrote the novelisation) worked together. The novel was based on the second last screenplay draft, if memory serves. So we can never be sure of Obi-wans intended age on Day 1 of shooting SW77 in '76. So the whole Luke being surprised that Obi-Wan was old enough to have fought in the Wars thing might have been gone by then. I know that it was often assumed Palpatine’s aging was accelerated due to his abuse of darkside powers. Stated specifically in some 90s EU if memory serves (Shadows of the Empire). So maybe using The Force “properly” extended your lifespan. LOTR was almost assuredly an influence on Star Wars, so the whole humans with an extended lifespan thing might have come from there. Please note there is no canon source that states “lightsiders” live longer than regular people.

I do wonder what George was picturing when he thought of the Clone Wars. I suppose he just came up with the name as a way of intriguing the audience with unseen backstory, giving us a sense of some crazy wars off in space back in the olden days of the Republic. And when the time came to write the prequels, he had to figure out what the term “Clone Wars” actually entailed. I doubt he intended back in the 70’s for the clones to be the army protecting the Republic. I do wonder, though, at what point he came up with the idea that the Clone Wars were orchestrated by the Emperor to gain power, since there’s nothing to suggest that in the OT. Maybe originally, the Clone Wars were just a series of conflicts unrelated to the rise of the Empire, which just happened to occur around the same time.

It is almost a certainty that The Clone Wars were originally envisioned as either a battle against clones or a battle between opposing forces in which both sides had their manpower based on cloned soldiers. The Heir to the Empire Trilogy, whose story was carefully monitored by Lucas himself (or so rumour has it), certainly portrays one or the other. The rapid accelerated rate of maturity of Clones (perhaps increasing as opposing sides became more desperate - an arms race of a sort) is stated as producing “clone madness”. So you had a third force of crazy clones just killing anything or everything they could. It was often assumed that The Mandalorians were allied in some way with whomever was opposing The Old Republic. Were they clones as well?

So it seems likely that Lucas did not intend for Clones to be solely Republic forces until, at the earliest, he began writing TPM in '94.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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when I read the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back , the passage regarding Boba Fett wearing the armor of a group of evil warriors who were defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars , led me to believe that the Mandalorians would have been the clones of The Clone Wars . A lot of publications also speculated on this around that time …Starlog , Cinefex etc . Plus there was also speculation that Obi-Wan might be a clone of the real Kenobi . The theory was that Obi-Wan was Obi-1 .

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

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screams in the void said:

there was also speculation that Obi-Wan might be a clone of the real Kenobi . The theory was that Obi-Wan was Obi-1 .

Where and when did this happen? It has been mentioned in another thread, but when was this theory making the rounds in fandom? In the 80s? The lead up to the release of TPM?

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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theprequelsrule said:

screams in the void said:

there was also speculation that Obi-Wan might be a clone of the real Kenobi . The theory was that Obi-Wan was Obi-1 .

Where and when did this happen? It has been mentioned in another thread, but when was this theory making the rounds in fandom? In the 80s? The lead up to the release of TPM?

^ In the 80’s , I was around for it ( first generation fan ) A lot of sci fi magazines and the people who wrote in to them speculated on it . Some of it carried over into the 90s before the prequels . Publications like Cinescape etc .There was also an issue of Star Wars official poster monthly that came out around 1978 or 79 that mentioned that the Storm troopers were clones .

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

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screams in the void said:

theprequelsrule said:

screams in the void said:

there was also speculation that Obi-Wan might be a clone of the real Kenobi . The theory was that Obi-Wan was Obi-1 .

Where and when did this happen? It has been mentioned in another thread, but when was this theory making the rounds in fandom? In the 80s? The lead up to the release of TPM?

^ In the 80’s , I was around for it ( first generation fan ) A lot of sci fi magazines and the people who wrote in to them speculated on it . Some of it carried over into the 90s before the prequels . Publications like Cinescape etc .There was also an issue of Star Wars official poster monthly that came out around 1978 or 79 that mentioned that the Storm troopers were clones .

Very, very interesting! I did not know that there was official material released so early on which established that the Stormtroopers were clones. I thought it was still speculation right up to sometime between the release of TPM and AOTC.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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theprequelsrule said:

screams in the void said:

theprequelsrule said:

screams in the void said:

there was also speculation that Obi-Wan might be a clone of the real Kenobi . The theory was that Obi-Wan was Obi-1 .

Where and when did this happen? It has been mentioned in another thread, but when was this theory making the rounds in fandom? In the 80s? The lead up to the release of TPM?

^ In the 80’s , I was around for it ( first generation fan ) A lot of sci fi magazines and the people who wrote in to them speculated on it . Some of it carried over into the 90s before the prequels . Publications like Cinescape etc .There was also an issue of Star Wars official poster monthly that came out around 1978 or 79 that mentioned that the Storm troopers were clones .

Very, very interesting! I did not know that there was official material released so early on which established that the Stormtroopers were clones. I thought it was still speculation right up to sometime between the release of TPM and AOTC.

There are a lot of early issues of official poster monthly archived on TheForce.Net , here is the entry from issue 4 which details the Storm Troopers as clones …http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post4-03.jpg
just slide the image over to see the page

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/